1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gas cooking apparatus with a glass/glass-ceramic plate providing a cooking surface which has at least one cooking area, with a gas burner whose burner ring is supplied a mixture of gas and primary air to form an open flame and which is associated with an opening in the glass/glass-ceramic plate and with a cooking vessel support arranged over the gas burner.
The present invention also relates to a cooking vessel support for this type of cooking apparatus.
2. Prior Art
A gas cooking apparatus with a glass-ceramic plate providing a cooking surface and cooking area, which is heated electrically, has been marketed commercially for more than two decades. These glass-ceramic cooking units are valued because of their pleasing appearance, the flat work surface and the ease with which they are cleaned. Because of these definite, highly esteemed advantages which are associated with glass-ceramic material as a cooking surface material, for a few years now attempts have been made to use this material in gas cooking apparatus or in cooking units with electrically heated cooking zones combined with gas burners, the so-called mixed or duo-units.
Two types of gas cooking apparatus have been built with this type of cooking surface. In one type a radiant gas burner is provided which is arranged under a cooking area on a closed glass-ceramic plate. In this type of gas burner the gas is burned on the surface of a burner plate made from porous and/or perforated ceramic material or from a fleece, fiber mat or web of ceramic or metal fibers. The radiant heat produced thereby is the essential component of the heat supplied to the heating area or zone. This kind of cooking apparatus unit is for example disclosed in German Patent Document DE 43 26 945 C2.
In the second type conventional atmospheric gas burners, i.e. those with an open flame, arising from holes provided in the largely sealed glass-ceramic plate, are used. The respective cooking vessel is placed on the so-called cooking container support, which is placed on the glass-ceramic plate. Moreover the so-called hybrid burner is known, in which a portion of the energy is also transmitted to the vessel by radiation besides the energy transfer by convection that occurs with an open flame.
The present invention is based on a gas cooking apparatus with gas burner having an open flame, for example as disclosed in the German Patent Documents DE 195 05 469 C1, DE 41 33 409 A1 or DE 44 42 572.
In cooking apparatus of the above-described type the respective cooking vessels typically are supported at the height of the cooking container or vessel support at a higher level than that of the conventional cooking surface that is provided by the glass/glass-ceramic plate. This has been found to be very troublesome especially in the above-mentioned duo-apparatus with electro-cooking areas and gas burner areas. The stability of the cooking vessels is seen to be a problem because of the large height differences between the gas burner areas and the electro-burner areas.
Combustion engineering considerations place a limit on efforts to keep the cooking vessel support as small as possible in the known embodiment of the gas burner positions.
A portion of the required combustion air is supplied as primary air with the gas stream at the known gas burner positions with gas burners having open flames. In the above-cited 195 05 469 C1 the primary air is supplied at the side of the glass-ceramic plate through suitable air entrance openings from outside into the space under the glass-ceramic plate. In the above-cited DE 44 42 572 C1 the supply of primary air occurs from outside under the glass-ceramic plate through aeration slots in the bushing ring, with which the opening in the glass-ceramic plate for the gas burner is enclosed. In both cases the supplied primary air from the outside is mixed with the gas fed to the burner by means of known devices. The remaining combustion air is guided to the flame as secondary air from above, i.e. above the glass-ceramic plate into the space between the vessel bottoms, flowing in from outside. Also the burned exhaust gas must be fed into the same space. For this reason minimization of the spacing between the glass-ceramic cooking surface and the bottom sides of the cooking vessels and thus the vessel support height is required in order to provide clean combustion and an efficient energy transfer.
When the bottom side of the cooking vessel is too close to the flame of the atmospheric burner, the exhaust gas quality is clearly poorer and the flames wander to the exterior in order to obtain secondary air required for combustion, whereby the energy transfer would be dramatically poorer, and, on account of unburned gas ingredients, the flames could flash back in a detonation or with a puff on removal of the cooking vessel from the cooking apparatus. Furthermore there is a danger that the flames come up to the vessel.
The currently known atmospheric burner thus requires a vessel support height of from 30 to 60 mm because of this reason. As a result there is a cooking vessel instability risk due to this height difference between the two different cooking planes (gas cooking plane and electro-cooking plate) or between the gas cooking plane and the height of the working plate and the ergonomics is not optimum.